Dry cat food.

Dear Sir, I am moved to respond to the June 2007 ethical question of the month (Can Vet J 2007;48:571), since, like many people, I fed my cats an exclusive diet of prescribed dry food, because I was told by my veterinarian that it was “the very best food that you could feed your cat.” After 10 years of continuous feeding of prescribed dry cat food, my first female Siamese developed kidney problems and my second, feline diabetes. I then researched cat nutrition and learned that dry cat food is just meat-flavored cereal — corn, rice, and wheat, laced with questionable additives and preservatives — cooked in large vats and through a process of extrusion molded into kibble. This product is so unpalatable to cats, who have reputations as discerning gourmets, that the manufacturing process necessitates spraying “digests,” fermented meat byproducts, onto the kibble. This is healthy and balanced? I understand that many veterinarians receive very little in the way of impartial scientific training in nutrition, although many are embarrassed to admit this. What they learn comes from the pet food industry, which, I also understand, as standard practice, provides students with free pet food. Business marketing plans are directed at veterinarians to encourage a lifetime of feeding commercial dry cat food. The sale of dry cat food can amount to 35% of a clinic’s income (1). Cats are obligate carnivores, no veterinarian would dispute that fact, so how is it that most veterinarians prescribe and sell only prescription diet dry cat food? Many illnesses in cats — diabetes, chronic renal failure, inflammatory bowel syndrome — are caused by dry cat food. Since veterinarians are prescribing food that is creating illness in cats, selling this food constitutes a conflict of interest and makes veterinarians part of the problem. The claims of “health” on these products cannot be verified over the lifetime of a cat, since any trial studies done are short-term. Cats have become “experimental animals.” The only real long-term tests are those done by cat owners who feed these dry commercial pet food formulations. As pet owners become more educated to the fact that a dry food diet is a junk food diet, they won’t blame the pet food companies, but the veterinarians who prescribed and sold them these prescription diet kibbles. Safe and effective handling of raw meat, a cat’s natural diet, is of course paramount, and pet owners are not idiots who cannot understand how to make food at home when provided with the correct information. Legislative changes are needed to strip the claims of “health” from dry cat food, remove the products from the market, and effectively educate owners on how to ensure the health of their cats by feeding natural diets. Tainted pet food is but the tip of the iceberg: the real scandal is that dry cat food formulations, veterinary-prescribed and sold, are causing so many illnesses in our cats.